The Tetrahedron Outdoor Club is gearing up for the best-attended cultural event on the Sunshine Coast. The Banff Mountain Film Festival, hosted annually by the local nonprofit recreation organization, is expected to fill the Elphinstone Secondary School gymnasium on Friday, March 1 with as many as 750 audience members.
“The largest crowds turn out for the event,” said Gerry Marcotte, president of the Tetrahedron Outdoor Club. “It’s always proven popular.”
The film festival was begun in 1976 by the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. After the Alberta-based festival each fall, a selection of its 75 films travel to nearly 800 cities worldwide. Local host organizations review the complete festival list and choose a package of short motion pictures with an emphasis on mountain culture, sports and exploration.
“It’s quite a tedious process,” explained Marcott. “Given the timelines, you can only see so much of a particular movie. Trying to get a sense of what they’re delivering from that, you have to make a decision. The committee does a good job of trying to sort through what package our audience here might like best.”
Funds raised at the event support the volunteer maintenance of four cabins and an extensive trail system in Tetrahedron Provincial Park. The Tetrahedron club’s next major project is the construction of a bridge over Chapman Creek, part of the approach to the McNair cabin at the foot of Panther Peak.
The film screenings at Elphinstone Secondary will be emceed by retired Eastlink TV producer Steve Sleep, himself an alumnus of the high school.
Festival organizers plan to keep the titles of their screenings shortlist under wraps until the start of the event.
One of the Canadian entries in this year’s Banff Mountain Film Festival (and a potential local screening) is Georgia Astle: Flip The Switch. Directed by Scott Secco, the movie is inspired by the rising number of female freeriders around the world. During the three-minute short, Whistler-born mountain biker Georgia Astle explores some of B.C.’s most striking landscapes on a search for terrain to push her riding.
Another recent release, Subterranean, features two gritty teams of hobbyist cavers who are poised to break records for the longest and deepest caves in Canada. After discovering a flooded underground chamber, Katie, a daytime accountant, becomes obsessed with returning to the Bisaro Anima cave in the Rockies to push the caving depth record. At the same time, a passionate Vancouver Island team is attempting to link two tunnel systems to create the longest known cave in the country.
The Banff festival also featured the world premiere of The Best Skier You’ve Never Heard Of, set at Shames Mountain, a co-operative ski hill near Terrace. The plot follows the real-life story of Adrien Grabinski, a champion ski racer whose career took him from the Alberta team to the Canadian national team as a junior. Grabinski eventually connected with the Shames Mountain community and became the hill’s ski patrol director and a caretaker.
The March 1 festival will include raffle tickets and door prizes and a 50/50 draw in support of Dakota Ridge Nordics. The Elphinstone Secondary Interact Club plans to sell refreshments. Doors open at 5:45 p.m. and no entry will be permitted after 7 p.m.
Tickets ($25 cash) are available from Alpha Adventures, Beyond Consignment, Elphi Cycles (Gibsons & Sechelt), High Beam Dreams, Tapworks or Trail Bay Source for Sports.
